Just when you thought you had seen it all regarding online phishing scams, along comes a new round of deceptive emails, phones calls, instant messages and even traditional printouts from your fax machine.

Unfortunately, while the popularity of March Madness (the NCAA Basketball Tournament) has grown exponentially, nearly every facet of any employee’s involvement with the event could open up the employee, as well as the organization, to a number of cyber risks.

Information security has a problem. We make far too many decisions without having reliable data to assist in our decision making process. Because of this, far too many information security professionals use what I call Gut 1.0 to make decisions based on gut feel...

Social engineering can be seen as a more direct approach to exposing real security assets such as passwords, processes, keys and so on. Via subtle manipulation, carefully planned framing and scenario attacks, through to friending and spear phishing, people are increasingly becoming the main target...

What is reflected glory? To do this trick you need someone with a high social status that you can be associated with. It doesn’t have to be a close association just one that is known. You then simply state with authority your own opinion once the relationship has been recently established...

In my ongoing expose on Social Engineering techniques I bring to you one of my favorites I call “The Female Social Lever.” A technique that takes advantage of social geometry and complex female group hierarchy. For this example we are going to use a party because it is where I developed this particular technique...

There is a form of phishing becoming more common on Twitter that is likely to fool even the most suspicious of users. I very nearly fell for it myself. What stopped me? Unlike me, the person who purportedly sent me the message doesn’t make the sort of spelling mistakes that were in the message...

Besides sheer entertainment, my objective is to practice my ability to create deception. It has been my observation that security personnel must be able to spot deception. Whether it’s covert channels or fake ID’s, deception is a very powerful tool that can be used both offensively and defensive...

Without the theory of mind everything that social engineers do or attempt to do would fail. The theory of mind is basically one’s ability to differentiate perspectives. From perspective comes intention, from intention comes reaction, and from reaction comes reward (or failure)...

For any activity you do, it’s important not just to measure how well the organization did in a stress test situation, but to evaluate where your opportunities for improvement are. In my experience, personas are a great way to communicate a rich context very quickly once they are introduced...

The Online Privacy Foundation (OPF) encourages people to get online and consider all the great things social networking sites could do for them. But the evidence is growing that we need to think harder about how we share information online and question how that information is used...

The method I used for this particular tactic was to monitor the conversational rhythm. Then inject into it and take it over allowing me to guide the conversation. The skill set that allows you to walk into a conversation and take it over can’t be understated...

How do you teach paranoia and suspicion? We often hire people because of their willingness to help others, their good communication skills, their ability to be responsive, etc. As we work through securing our humans, we need to strike a balance – trust but verify, assist but not unquestioningly...